


Perchance to be free.

by TayBartlett9000



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Anger, Avon's thoughts, Conflict, Death, Federation, Gen, Guilt, Loyalty, Murder, Post Finale, emotion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayBartlett9000/pseuds/TayBartlett9000
Summary: Takes place  shortly after season 4 episode 13. Avon's final stand.
Kudos: 5





	Perchance to be free.

He fired for the third time. Now he could see red, red born from the rage of Blake’s betrayal and red from the blood that was now leaking from Roj Blake’s wounds. He could see the other man’s eyes widening as he became aware of the three bullets that had struck him. Avon couldn’t find any pitty for the man. Blake had betrayed them. Blake had betrayed him.

Blake tried to move closer to Avon, his legs buckling beneath him. He reached out to Avon, grasping hold of his killer’s arms. He was desperately trying to cling onto something, anything, even if the thing he was clinging onto was the man who had fired the bullets at him. 

“Avon!” Roj Blake gasped, the fire vanishing from his eyes as death loomed above him, preparing to take him for its own. He looked into Avon’s eyes, pleading with him, begging. Not that it would have done any good.

Avon let go of Blake’s arms, watching with a mixture of anger and disgust as he crumpled to the ground at his feet. Avon could hear the shouts of many people, though he knew not whether they were federation voices or the voices of other rebbles. Guns were fired. Explosions wrent the air. Avon knew he didn’t have too long to wait before the federation would be upon them. He paused for a moment, looking down at Blake’s body as it lay there. All signs of life had left Blake’s eyes. He was now beyond all help. Avon wouldn’t have helped him had there been any chance, not after what he had done. ‘How could he have done this?’ Avon wondered. After all the time that had passed, after they had been apart for so long and after everything they had been through together, how had Blake betrayed them? Why had Blake betrayed them? He had brought them here to die. Avon thought of all of the rousing speeches Blake had given while he had been the leader of the Liberator’s crew. He had told them of their fight against the federation, the fact that they would fight till the last drop of their blood. And he had conspired to bring his friends and fellow rebbles to a bloody end. At the end of the day, Blake’s words had meant very little after all. Avon had told Vila once that Blake’s great bleeding heart would get them all killed one day. It was as if he was right. He often was. This time though, he didn’t think he would get the opportunity to tell Vila that he had told him so.

Far off in the distance, Avon could hear the voices of Tarrant and Vila, along with a voice that he didn’t recognise. It hardly mattered now. Avon didn’t care who was coming for him. They were all as good as dead anyway.

Avon felt his anger rising. All his life, he had been sure to look after number one, until he had met Blake. Blake had made Avon believe in something more. He had tried to fight against it. Blake’s crusading spirit had got on his very last nerve and yet against his better judgement, Avon had begun to find himself believing the words their leader had spoken. It had been a reluctant belief, but a belief nevertheless. He had tried not to believe it and had scorned the others for allowing Blake to govern their lives. Secretly though, the optimistic part of him had begun to believe that they could in fact make a difference. Blake’s dissappearence from their midst had not quenched that reluctant belief. Once Avon had taken over, he had had a crew and a ship to do with what he wanted. Blake had trusted him. He had told him so.

The firing of a gun and a cry of pain. Dana, Avon thought. A second gunshot was followed by a second cry of pain. Vila was dead too, then. Blake had killed them too, just as he had killed Gan years before.

Staring down at the body of the diseaced Roj Blake, Avon could almost feel the life draining from his companions. He had come to know each one of them better than he would have expected or liked for that matter. But they had existed as a team, each one of them bringing an important skill to their various opperations. Even Vila had been useful on occasion. Now though, the lives of his friends had come to an end. And it was all Roj Blake’s fault.

“Why?” Avon asked the dead man inside his head, “why did you betray us? We were never friends, Blake, but I didn’t think that you would betray us, not after everything you told us. I never wanted to trust you but I believe that you know I did.”

Blake made no reply. But of course he did not.

More gunshots were fired. A third cry of agony. Soolin. Avon stood there, the cries and the gunshots ringing in his ears. Someone he recognised called out his own name before falling to the ground himself. Tarrant.

Avon turned round to stare at the fallen boddies of his crew, lying twisted and broken upon the ground. Their dead eyes were wide open, staring directly at him. Avon felt an uncharacteristic needle of guilt penetrating his anger with Blake. He was the only one left and he supposed that he was partly to blame. “I brought you here,” he told the corpses silently, “if I hadn’t been chasing Blake, if I hadn’t still believed in the lies he had told us, then you would all be alive. I should have left and gone my own way, but I wanted the Liberator. I had grown used to your companionship, annoying though it often was. Better the devil you know, after all. I should have continued on alone. That would have been the better option.”

Federation troopers were closing in around him, fast. Avon was surrounded. He looked back down at the body of Blake still lying at his feet. As it happened, there truly was nothing left after the final betrayal. What did any of it matter when all was lost. Why should he bother fighting when the end had come?

Avon smiled slightly. He had traversed the galaxy for years and he was about to meet his end here. It turned out that there was nowhere else for him to go than to the place one went when death beckoned. Death was the only thing that would bring him the freedom he desired. He would never find freedom anywhere else. And so he raised his gun, smiling at the troopers, intending to go out fighting as Blake would have done. ‘Might as well,’ he thought. He was going to die anyway.

A volley of gunshots wrent the air, bullets flying through the air. Avon had hit some of the federation troopers. But they had also managed to hit him. Avon crumpled to the ground, landing beside Blake and turning his head to stare at him. They were going to die together after all.


End file.
